Wise Kotiam Finds Healing
Kotiam stretches out his fingers, his rough palms facing upward, revealing proof of years of hard manual labor. “My farmer’s certificate is the calluses on my hands,” he says proudly.
A farmer of corn, yams, and sorghum and father to 14 children, 52-year-old Kotiam has suffered both financially and physically in the past several years.
Nearly twenty years ago, a growth, commonly referred to as a goiter, began to develop in Kotiam’s thyroid gland, causing a grapefruit-sized swelling to protrude from his neck. It caused considerable pain for him, negatively affecting his farming abilities. For years, Kotiam was unable to fully cultivate his land and reaped progressively weaker crops every season. “I could not send my children to school, and I could not feed my family properly,” he explained. “I did not have a proper income.”
Kotiam sought help at a rural hospital near his village of Matéri. There, he received medication which reduced the pain and gave him hope that the goiter would soon diminish. However, after returning home, the pain and tenderness in his neck soon resumed.
The traditional healers in Kotiam’s mainly voodoo village began to entice him with jujus and fetishes, claiming they would cure him of all problems and deficiencies. But the wise, resilient farmer had coped thus far and refused to become involved in “superstitious matters.” He held onto his faith, believing that a suitable solution would eventually come. It wasn’t easy for him. “At times I was worried that I was going to die,” Kotiam said. “The tumor was in such a vulnerable area – my neck.”
Years passed. One day, two words began to be spoken of frequently among the people in his village. Kotiam did not know the details or the meaning of “Mercy Ships,” but he thought that they related to something medical. He investigated and discovered that doctors from a foreign land were looking for people with sicknesses and conditions much like his own.
Kotiam travelled to the region of Natatingou, where it was said the doctors were working. By the time he arrived there, all he found was an empty building littered with flyers and posters. The bewildered Kotiam leaned down to pick up a flyer. A picture of a woman with a swollen neck like his own was next to a picture of the same woman with a normal neck. He realized that a solution was indeed possible, but he was too late. The doctors had already left.
However, Kotiam refused to accept defeat and dialed the telephone number on the flyer. His determination paid off.
Now Kotiam sits on a bed in a ward onboard the world’s largest non-governmental hospital ship, the Africa Mercy. The mass that occupied his neck is gone, having been skilfully removed by surgeons only a day ago. His speech is calm and collected as he gently rubs his hands together. “I come from a poor family. I had to sell my goat to get money so I could travel here to the ship. It was not easy to do,” he says. “But when I saw the ship, it was like meeting a brother that I had not seen for years.”
Before Kotiam left his village to travel the exhausting nine-hour journey to the port of Cotonou, he had no assurances that he would be accepted for surgery. “It is like hunting with one arrow,” he explains. “When you see an animal, you only have one chance to kill it. If you miss, you do not eat. That is how I felt coming to this ship. I did not know whether I would be accepted. But I had this chance which I had to take.”
The grey hairs in his beard and on his head indicate a humble and experienced wisdom, reflected in his solemn words. Kotiam endured a great deal. But the hope and healing Mercy Ships has brought to his life is evident in his relieved, smiling face. “I am very happy and cannot wait to go back to my farm. I hope to be able to send my children to school again.”
“I have lost many things over the years because I have not been able to farm properly. But I think those problems are over now,” Kotiam says. “By God’s grace I will be able to start farming again next year.”
